A Comparative Study of Energy Contents in Mosquito Vectors of Malaria and Dengue Prevailing in Jodhpur City (Thar Desert) of Rajasthan State, India

Background: Transmission of malaria and dengue in the desert part of India is mainly caused by Anopheles ste­phensi and Aedes aegypti respectively. The maintenance and transmission of the pathogens that cause malaria and dengue are dependent on the physiology of the mosquito vectors. We aimed to measure the energy contents in the mosquitoes transmitting malaria and dengue in the desert part of the country. Methods: Immature stages of mosquitoes were collected from six different larval habitats situated in Jodhpur City of Rajasthan state, India. The immature stages of both the mosquitoes were collected once in fortnightly from each loca­tion. Quantitative estimations of the lipid, glucose, and glycogen of the laboratory-reared and field collected An. stephensi and Ae. aegypti were made by spectrophotometric method. The energy contents of the larvae, pupae, fe­males, and males were estimated in triplicates on six different occasions. Results: The lipid content of laboratory-reared larvae, pupae and female mosquitoes of An. stephensi and Ae. aegypti was found to be lower than their conspecific field-collected specimens. Whereas, the glycogen content in the la­boratory-reared larvae, pupae and female mosquitoes of An. stephensi and Ae. aegypti was higher than that of their conspecific field-collected specimens. The glucose content in all the stages of the laboratory-reared An. stephensi was lower than their conspecific field-collected specimens except in few cases. Conclusion: The higher amount of lipid in field-collected mosquitoes may be because of the availability of food in the natural habitat and adaptation of mosquitoes. Mosquitoes living in desert climate are physiologically better equipped to survive in the desert environment

Lasers in medical applications: R&D Mapping

A study of the MEDLINE CDROM database, for the period 1969-2000 was undertaken. The purpose was, to identify core areas of research and development, in the field of applications of lasers to humans, along with other bibliometric indicators of research. A total of 34,833 records were retrieved, downloaded and analysed. The results indicate a steady increase in the number of publications every year, from 1970 onwards, with 1997 (2767 articles) and 1998 (2914 articles) being the most productive years. The most prolific contributors were J. Haut, with 95 publications to his credit, followed by M. Landthaler (82), G. Coscas (79), S.G. Bown (73) and P. Bjerring (70). Collaboration among the authors was high, with a maximum of 15 contributors observed in a few articles. The top ranking journal in the field was Ophthalmology, which published 769 articles starting from 1978. USA was way ahead as the country with the highest journal productivity (around 40% of the total number of records), followed by UK and Germany. A total of 103 articles were published from India. English was the preferred language of publication, with 75% of the records being published in English language. In the use of lasers for humans, maximum number of records were found for adult and middle aged populations. Research focussed on the eye and its various diseases. Lasers were found to be used for therapeutic purposes, in surgery and in the diagnosis of diseases. Carbondioxide laser was most frequently used for medical applications. Though there were quite a few references on the adverse effects of lasers, the therapeutic effects far outweighed them

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Not AvailableAccording to Nutritional Intake Survey Series conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation, there has been steady decline in consumption of calories and protein, but the fat consumption has been increasing both in rural and urban India. Unlike calorie and protein, the difference in fat intake in rural and urban is pronounced. Across the states of the country, the north-east and eastern region states seem lagging in terms of nutrition –moving further away from desirable levels and are much below the national average too. In terms of calorie intake, 68 percent of country’s population remains undernourished and during 2004-05 and 2009-10, there was an increase of about 55 million people who registered to have deficient intake of calories. With rise in food expenditure among rural and urban masses, there has been less than proportionate increase in calorie and protein intake. However, a propensity to consume more of fat has been witnessed with rise in food expenditure.Not Availabl

Effect of Spacing and dosage of Nitrogen against the Maydis Leaf Blight Disease of Maize

Maize is one of the most important cereal crops in the world. It belongs to family, "Poaceae". It has wider adaptability under different agro-climatic conditions. Its productivity per unit area is very high, so it is called “queen of cereals” globally. Though, Crop has high food and economic value, its production is limited by many constraints including the diseases also. Maydis leaf blight (MLB) is found almost everywhere maize is grown. It is caused by fungus Helminthosporium maydis. This disease is highly destructive in hot, humid and tropical climates of the world. In present investigation field trial was conducted to evaluate the effect of Spacing and Nitrogen dosages thereby managing the disease. The layout of this field experiment was in split plot design and conducted for the year 2019 and 2020 Kharif comprising of spacing: 45x20 cm, 60x20 cm and 75x20 cm and nitrogen dosages: 120, 160, 200 and 240 kg/ha as treatment with three replications. Results show that during 2019, the lowest PDI was obtained with the spacing of S3 (75x20 cm), which was significantly superior to all the spacing thereby reducing disease severity. The PDI was significantly influenced by nitrogen levels too. Lowest PDI (54.06 %) was obtained with the N3 (200 kg/ha), significantly superior to N2 and N1 levels of nitrogen fertilizer. There was also a significant interaction between spacing and nitrogen levels. Similar results were obtained during 2020 and for pool data that has also been calculated for the year Kharif 2019-2020. During the year, 2019 and 2020 grain yield was significantly influenced by spacing and nitrogen level too but the interaction was not significant

Detection of <i>in Vitro</i> Metabolite Formation of Leflunomide: A Fluorescence Dynamics and Electronic Structure Study

The metabolic transformation of antirheumatic fluorescent drug leflunomide into its active metabolite teriflunomide through isoxazole ring opening has been monitored <i>in vitro</i> using steady state and time domain fluorescence spectroscopy and density functional theory. During metabolic reaction, absorption of leflunomide split into two bands resembling absorption spectra of teriflunomide. The fluorescence spectra reveal slow conversion of leflunomide to <i>E</i> and <i>Z</i> forms of teriflunomide in aqueous medium, which becomes faster at basic pH. The <i>E</i> form, which is more potent as a drug, becomes more stable with an increase in the basicity of the medium. Both molecules are associated with charge transfer due to twisting in the lowest singlet excited state. Excited state charge transfer followed by proton transfer was also observed in the <i>Z</i> form during the ring opening of leflunomide. Quantum yield and radiative decay rates have been observed to decrease for the metabolite because of an increase in nonradiative decay channels

Achieving Food and Livelihood Security and Enhancing Profitability through an Integrated Farming System Approach: A Case Study from Western Plains of Uttar Pradesh, India

The integrated farming system (IFS) is a comprehensive farm practice to improve small and marginal farmers&rsquo; livelihoods. The IFS enhances nutrient recycling and food security and promotes greater efficiency of fertilizers and natural resources. To improve livelihood, profits, and employment generation holistically through an IFS method, a study was conducted over four years, from 2016 to 2019, to define the farming condition in 1036 households in the Muzzafarnagar district of Western Uttar Pradesh. Crop + dairy was the most frequent farming method (68%) followed by crop + dairy + horticulture + goatary. Compared to older cultivars, improved rice, maize, wheat, and barley cultivars enhanced crop yield by 17 to 42%. Transplanting sugarcane and intercropping of mustard increased system yield from 58.89% to 86.17% compared to the sole sugarcane crop. Nutritional kitchen gardening resulted in an average saving of $20 to$25 during the Kharif season and $20 to$27 during Rabi season. Exotic vegetables such as broccoli, Chinese cabbage, cherry tomato, kale, parsley, and lettuce were introduced, which increased regular income. With the adoption of a multi-tier-based system, the net returns from the system improved from 0.6 lakh to 2.20 lakhs per ha. Enhancing the fodder availability resulted in a 27.5% milk yield improvement. The study&rsquo;s outcomes demonstrated that a five-member family&rsquo;s annual protein (110&ndash;125 kg) and carbohydrate (550 to 575 kg) requirements can be easily met using the IFS technique. According to the study, IFS approaches combined with better technical interventions can ensure the long-term viability of farming systems and improve livelihoods

Distributed Monitoring Infrastructure for Worldwide LHC Computing Grid

The journey of a monitoring probe from its development phase to the moment its execution result is presented in an availability report is a complex process. It goes through multiple phases such as development, testing, integration, release, deployment, execution, data aggregation, computation, and reporting. Further, it involves people with different roles (developers, site managers, VO managers, service managers, management), from different middleware providers (ARC, dCache, gLite, UNICORE and VDT), consortiums (WLCG, EMI, EGI, OSG), and operational teams (GOC, OMB, OTAG, CSIRT). The seamless harmonization of these distributed actors is in daily use for monitoring of the WLCG infrastructure. In this paper we describe the monitoring of the WLCG infrastructure from the operational perspective. We explain the complexity of the journey of a monitoring probe from its execution on a grid node to the visualization on the MyWLCG portal where it is exposed to other clients. This monitoring workflow profits from the interoperability established between the SAM and RSV frameworks. We show how these two distributed structures are capable of uniting technologies and hiding the complexity around them, making them easy to be used by the community. Finally, the different supported deployment strategies, tailored not only for monitoring the entire infrastructure but also for monitoring sites and virtual organizations, are presented and the associated operational benefits highlighted

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Not AvailableOwing global climate change, surveillance is essential tool to detect changes in pattern of diseases in the crops. To fulfill this purpose surveys were conducted from 2013-18 in five maize growing zones of India viz., Northern hill Zone (NHZ), Northern West Plain Zone (NWPZ), Northern East Plain Zone (NEPZ), Peninsular Zone (PZ) and Central Western Zone (CWZ). The percent disease index (PDI) of maydis leaf blight (MLB) was moderate (45) to high (65) in 4 zones (NHZ, NWPZ, NEPZ and PZ) while low in CWZ (25). Though the lowest incidence of turcicum leaf blight (TLB) was reported from CWZ in 2013 but it has increased consistently. PDI of TLB was highest (46) in 2016 in NHZ whereas banded leaf and sheath blight (BLSB) appeared at higher intensity in NHZ and NWPZ. Moderate (42) infection of curvularia leaf spot (CLS) was observed in all the five zones whereas bacterial stalk rot (BSR) was restricted to NHZ and NWPZ with moderate infection (33-47). Post flowering stalk rots (Charcoal and Fusarium stalk rot) appeared at higher intensity in all the 4 zones except NEPZ. PDI of brown spot (BS) ranged from 15-47 in NHZ and CWZ. Sorghum downy mildew (SDM), polysora rust (PR) and wilt were observed with very low infection from PZ while bacterial leaf streak (BLS) and brown stripe downy mildew (BSDM) were observed in NWPZ. This study revealed that there is need to develop effective management toolsfor MLB, TLB, PFSR and BLSB as these are the most prevalent maize diseases in present scenarioNot Availabl